Welcome

This is a Web site to collect, save, and share information about the Michigan Terminal System (MTS), the computer time-sharing operating system, and the organizations and people that developed and ran it. The documents, images, recollections, and comments that make up this Web site come from many sources. It is our hope that individuals will contribute many more.

Overview: See the MTS Article on Wikipedia for a good overview of MTS, its architecture, and the sites that developed and ran it.

Software: See the MTS Distributions section of this Web site for information on
the availability of MTS software and to download MTS Distributions.

E-Mail list: Announcements, news items, and updates related to MTS are sent to the e-mail group MTS-Interest@umich.edu a few times a year. If you would like to be added to the group, send a note to mts-comments@umich.edu.

Contribute: Anyone can view the contents of this archive, but only members of the
Google Groups' group "# (Pound Sign)" can create and edit pages, upload
documents and files, start discussions, and enter comments. To start,
the group is only being used to control access to this archive site and
not as an e-mail list. Anyone with a Google account may join this group.
If you don't have a Google account, you can create one. They are free.
If you just want to view items in the archive, you do not need to join.
If you would like to contribute,
click here to visit and join the group.

U-M’s course registration process, traditionally held in Waterman
Gymnasium (current site of the chemistry building), had evolved from
handwritten, hand-processed forms to IBM punch cards by the late 1960s.
However, the Office of the Registrar still needed to process the cards
to create a final schedule. With U-M’s ever-growing student body, the
resulting experience was inevitable: hours of waiting and a high degree
of mistakes or conflicts that, in turn, cost even more time to correct.
Reportedly, circa 1971, an average of 25 percent of all schedules
bounced back due to changes in class times or sections filling up.

In an effort to improve the system, U-M computer science
professor Bernard Galler moved forward with the concept of a graduate
course built on tackling real-world scenarios. In 1972, he challenged
“Computer & Communication Studies 673” to fix U-M’s course
registration problem. They aced their assignment, establishing the
founding design principles and programming of the Computer Registration
In Spite of Problems system (CRISP).

Over the last six months or so, entries for PIL, APL, Assembler G, and GPSS have been added to the Programming languages in MTS section of the "Try MTS" web site. They join the existing entries for BASIC, FORTRAN, MAD (GOM), ALGOL 60, ALGOL W, LISP, UTILISP, PL/1(F), SNOBOL, RATFOR, and FLECS as well as more general information on MTS including how to install, operate, and use it.

10 January 2018Jon Sell saved this device from a dumpster many years ago